All eyes on Frank Ocean as Grammy Awards approach

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Everybody's thinkin' about Frank Ocean.

Ocean is a cause celebre and the man with the momentum as Sunday's Grammy Awards approach. One of six top nominees with six nominations apiece, the 25-year-old R&B singer turned cultural talking point will have the music world's attention.

It remains to be seen if it will be the "Thinkin Bout You" singer's night, but there's no question he's dominated the discussion so far. Already a budding star with a gift for building buzz as well as crafting songs, Ocean was swept up by something more profound when he told fans his first love was a man last fall as he prepared to release his major-label debut, "channel ORANGE."

It was a bold move and one that could have submarined his career before it really even got started. Instead, everyone from Beyonce to the often-homophobic R&B and rap communities showed public support. It was a remarkable moment.

"It speaks to the advancements of our culture," renowned producer Rick Rubin said. "It feels like the culture's moving forward and he's a representative of the new acceptance in the world for different ideas, which just broadens (our experience), makes the world a better place."

A recent altercation in a parking lot with Chris Brown only focused more attention on Ocean. Ocean says Brown was the aggressor; both are competing against each other in one of the Grammy categories.

Ocean is up for the major awards best new artist, album of the year and record of the year when the show airs live on CBS at 8 p.m. EST from the Staples Center, sharing top-nominee billing with fun., Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Don't hand Ocean those trophies just yet, though. R&B and hip-hop performers (Ocean is part of the Odd Future collective) have had a spotty history at the Grammys recently when it comes to major awards.

Only one R&B act has won album of the year this century, and it's hard to even call him just an R&B act given his legend, artistic scope and material: Ray Charles for his "Genius & Friends," an all-star collaboration that was honored posthumously.

Also limiting Ocean's chances for a clean sweep are his fellow top nominees. Most are riding waves of their own.

Fun. became just the second act to sweep nominations in all four major categories with a debut album, equaling Christopher Cross' 1981 feat. Like Cross' "Sailing," the New York-based pop-rock band has ridden along on the crest of an inescapable song: "We Are Young," featuring Janelle Monae.

Cross won five Grammys, sweeping the major awards. Fun. likely will have a much harder time piling up that number of victories because of the buzz surrounding the group's competitors. It's not just Ocean who has people talking.

London-based folk-rockers Mumford & Sons had one of the top-selling albums of the year with "Babel" and already has a history with The Recording Academy's thousands of voters, having been nominated for major awards the year prior. Also, The Black Keys have a winning track record at the Grammys.

And don't count out West and Jay-Z, who were shut out of the major categories but remain very much in voters' minds.

Jack White's "Blunderbuss" competes with fun.'s "Some Nights," Ocean's "channel ORANGE," Mumford's "Babel" and The Keys' "El Camino" for the night's top award, album of the year.

Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know," featuring Kimbra, Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" join the fun., Ocean and Black Keys entries in record of the year.

Fun. and Clarkson also are nominated for song of the year along with Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Miguel's "Adorn."

And rounding out the major categories, fun., Ocean, Alabama Shakes, Hunter Hayes and The Lumineers are up for best new artist.

Those major nominees figure prominently on the 3 1/2-hour telecast, broadcast live on CBS at 8 p.m. EST.

Swift will kick things off with a show-opening performance. Fun. and Ocean will take the stage. Others scheduled to perform include Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, Clarkson, White and Juanes.

There will be no shortage of mashups the Grammys have become famous for, either. Elton John, Mavis Staples, Mumford, Brittany Howard, T Bone Burnett and Zac Brown are saluting the late Levon Helm, who won the Americana Grammy last year a few months before his death. The Keys will join Dr. John and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on stage. Sting, Rihanna and Bruno Mars will perform together. Other team-ups include Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley, and Alicia Keys and Maroon 5.

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For Families Struggling with Mental Illness, Carolyn Wolf Is a Guide in the Darkness

When a life starts to unravel, where do you turn for help?

Melissa Klump began to slip in the eighth grade. She couldn’t focus in class, and in a moment of despair she swallowed 60 ibuprofen tablets. She was smart, pretty and ill: depression, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

In her 20s, after a more serious suicide attempt, her parents sent her to a residential psychiatric treatment center, and from there to another. It was the treatment of last resort. When she was discharged from the second center last August after slapping another resident, her mother, Elisa Klump, was beside herself.

“I was banging my head against the wall,” the mother said. “What do I do next?” She frantically called support groups, therapy programs, suicide prevention lines, anybody, running down a list of names in a directory of mental health resources. “Finally,” she said, “somebody told me, ‘The person you need to talk to is Carolyn Wolf.’ ”

That call, she said, changed her life and her daughter’s. “Carolyn has given me hope,” she said. “I didn’t know there were people like her out there.”

Carolyn Reinach Wolf is not a psychiatrist or a mental health professional, but a lawyer who has carved out what she says is a unique niche, working with families like the Klumps.

One in 17 American adults suffers from a severe mental illness, and the systems into which they are plunged — hospitals, insurance companies, courts, social services — can be fragmented and overwhelming for families to manage. The recent shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., have brought attention to the need for intervention to prevent such extreme acts of violence, which are rare. But for the great majority of families watching their loved ones suffer, and often suffering themselves, the struggle can be boundless, with little guidance along the way.

“If you Google ‘mental health lawyer,’ ” said Ms. Wolf, a partner with Abrams & Fensterman, “I’m kinda the only game in town.”

On a recent afternoon, she described in her Midtown office the range of her practice.

“We have been known to pull people out of crack dens,” she said. “I have chased people around hotels all over the city with the N.Y.P.D. and my team to get them to a hospital. I had a case years ago where the person was on his way back from Europe, and the family was very concerned that he was symptomatic. I had security people meet him at J.F.K.”

Many lawyers work with mentally ill people or their families, but Ron Honberg, the national director of policy and legal affairs for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said he did not know of another lawyer who did what Ms. Wolf does: providing families with a team of psychiatrists, social workers, case managers, life coaches, security guards and others, and then coordinating their services. It can be a lifeline — for people who can afford it, Mr. Honberg said. “Otherwise, families have to do this on their own,” he said. “It’s a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week job, and for some families it never ends.”

Many of Ms. Wolf’s clients declined to be interviewed for this article, but the few who spoke offered an unusual window on the arcane twists and turns of the mental health care system, even for families with money. Their stories illustrate how fraught and sometimes blind such a journey can be.

One rainy morning last month, Lance Sheena, 29, sat with his mother in the spacious family room of her Long Island home. Mr. Sheena was puffy-eyed and sporadically inattentive; the previous night, at the group home where he has been living since late last summer, another resident had been screaming incoherently and was taken away by the police. His mother, Susan Sheena, eased delicately into the family story.

“I don’t talk to a lot of people because they don’t get it,” Ms. Sheena said. “They mean well, but they don’t get it unless they’ve been through a similar experience. And anytime something comes up, like the shooting in Newtown, right away it goes to the mentally ill. And you think, maybe we shouldn’t be so public about this, because people are going to be afraid of us and Lance. It’s a big concern.”

Her son cut her off. “Are you comparing me to the guy that shot those people?”

“No, I’m saying that anytime there’s a shooting, like in Aurora, that’s when these things come out in the news.”

“Did you really just compare me to that guy?”

“No, I didn’t compare you.”

“Then what did you say?”

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Hazards of having an ex-wife as credit card joint owner

Dear Liz: My boyfriend is deployed. I have his power of attorney, and during his deployment I have paid off all of his credit card debt. The accounts now need to be closed because they are ones that were acquired with his former wife. I know you say that it will hurt his credit to close accounts, but I'd rather close them because they're tied to his ex.

Answer: If the former wife is a joint account holder on the cards, they should have been closed and the balances transferred to other credit cards in his name only before the divorce was final. The credit score dings from closing accounts and opening new ones pale compared with the potential damage a vengeful, or neglectful, former spouse could do with those cards. She could have run up big balances or tried to wrest control of the accounts and then failed to pay them, ruining his credit scores.

If your boyfriend has several other open credit cards, you could simply close these. If he doesn't, you might talk to the credit card companies about closing these cards and simultaneously opening new ones in his name only. This might be tricky to do while he's deployed, however, even with a power of attorney. Another option is to simply open a new card for him online before closing the others.

Rising rate for homeowner insurance

Dear Liz: My homeowners insurance just went up 25%. I've made no claims and made no changes. I want to get quotes from other providers, but I'm afraid I'm going to get some type of "teaser" rate. I tried changing companies a few years ago and the rate was good, but when it came time for the renewal, they doubled the price! Again, I made no changes nor had any claims. So, now I want to change, but I'm afraid of falling into the same trap. Any suggestions?

Answer: You can't assume you're locking in a low rate for life when you buy homeowners insurance. Companies that want to expand their market share may lower their prices awhile to lure customers away from their competitors, then raise premiums when their claims costs go up or they simply want to cut their risk.

The company's reputation for customer service should be at least as important a factor as price in your decision-making. Check the complaint surveys that many state insurance departments maintain on their websites to see which companies have the best (and worst) reputations.

One way to reduce your homeowner premium is to increase your deductible. Raising the amount you pay out of pocket from $250 to $1,000 can lower your premiums 25%. You should be paying small damages out of pocket anyway, since filing small claims can cause your rates to rise.

You also should shop around every few years, even if a company doesn't dramatically raise your rates, to make sure you're getting a decent deal. But again, chasing the lowest-cost insurance could be only a short-term win — an insurer that charges slightly more could be the more stable, and consumer-friendly, choice.

Remodel a home before selling?

Dear Liz: It has been almost one year since my domestic partner passed away, and our home of 43 years is fully paid for. I am ready to sell. The house is structurally in good shape but needs upgrades and a backyard redo. I have heard that painting both inside and out is a plus, but I'm concerned that any other improvements, such as flooring, would be my taste and not the buyer's. Is it a wise idea to indicate that any major improvements be deducted from escrow funds?

Answer: You're smart not to take on any major remodeling just before you sell, since few home improvements come anywhere close to paying for themselves. The fix-ups that typically do return more than they cost include painting, deep cleaning, trimming and freshening your landscaping, and de-cluttering. Consider storing half or more of your possessions. You'll have to pack them up anyway to move, and getting them out of the way now will make your house look bigger.

Talk to your real estate agent about the advisability of replacing your floors. If yours are quite worn, the investment may pay for itself. Otherwise, a cleaning may be enough. You don't have to offer to pay for the next owner's improvements. Just price the home appropriately to reflect the fact that it needs updates.

Questions may be sent to 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the "Contact" form at asklizweston.com. Distributed by No More Red Inc.

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A delicate new balancing act in senior healthcare

When Claire Gordon arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, nurses knew she needed extra attention.

She was 96, had heart disease and a history of falls. Now she had pneumonia and the flu. A team of Cedars specialists converged on her case to ensure that a bad situation did not turn worse and that she didn't end up with a lengthy, costly hospital stay.

Frail seniors like Gordon account for a disproportionate share of healthcare expenditures because they are frequently hospitalized and often land in intensive care units or are readmitted soon after being released. Now the federal health reform law is driving sweeping changes in how hospitals treat a rapidly growing number of elderly patients.

The U.S. population is aging quickly: People older than 65 are expected to make up nearly 20% of it by 2030. Linda P. Fried, dean of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said now is the time to train professionals and test efforts to improve care and lower healthcare costs for elderly patients.

"It's incredibly important that we prepare for being in a society where there are a lot of older people," she said. "We have to do this type of experiment right now."

At Cedars-Sinai, where more than half the patients in the medical and surgical wards are 65 or older, one such effort is dubbed the "frailty project." Within 24 hours, nurses assess elderly patients for their risk of complications such as falls, bed sores and delirium. Then a nurse, social worker, pharmacist and physician assess the most vulnerable patients and make an action plan to help them.

The Cedars project stands out nationally because medical professionals are working together to identify high-risk patients at the front end of their hospitalizations to prevent problems at the back end, said Herb Schultz, regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"For seniors, it is better care, it is high-quality care and it is peace of mind," he said.

The effort and others like it also have the potential to reduce healthcare costs by cutting preventable medical errors and readmissions, Schultz said. The federal law penalizes hospitals for both.

Gordon, an articulate woman with brightly painted fingernails and a sense of humor, arrived at Cedars-Sinai by ambulance on a Monday.

Soon, nurse Jacquelyn Maxton was at her bedside asking a series of questions to check for problems with sleep, diet and confusion. The answers led to Gordon's designation as a frail patient. The next day, the project team huddled down the hall and addressed her risks one by one. Medical staff would treat the flu and pneumonia while at the same time addressing underlying health issues that could extend Gordon's stay and slow her recovery, both in the hospital and after going home.

To reduce the chance of falls, nurses placed a yellow band on her wrist that read "fall risk" and ensured that she didn't get up on her own. To prevent bed sores, they got her up and moving as often as possible. To cut down on confusion, they reminded Gordon frequently where she was and made sure she got uninterrupted sleep. Medical staff also stopped a few unnecessary medications that Gordon had been prescribed before her admission, including a heavy narcotic and a sleeping pill.

"It is really a holistic approach to the patient, not just to the disease that they are in here for," said Glenn D. Braunstein, the hospital's vice president for clinical innovation.

Previously, nurse Ivy Dimalanta said, she and her colleagues provided similar care but on a much more random basis. Under the project, the care has become standardized.

The healthcare system has not been well designed to address the needs of seniors who may have had a lifetime of health problems, said Mary Naylor, gerontology professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. As a result, patients sometimes fall through the cracks and return to hospitals again and again.

"That is not good for them and that is not good for society to be using resources in that way," Naylor said.

Using data from related projects, Cedars began a pilot program in 2011 and expanded it last summer. The research is continuing but early results suggest that the interventions are leading to fewer seniors being admitted to the intensive care unit and to shorter hospital stays, said Jeff Borenstein, researcher and lead clinician on the frailty project. "It definitely seems to be going in the right direction," he said.

The hospital is now working with Naylor and the University of Pennsylvania to design a program to help the patients once they go home.

"People who are frail are very vulnerable when they leave the hospital," said Harriet Udin Aronow, a researcher at Cedars. "We want to promote them being safe at home and continuing to recover."

In Gordon's case, she lives alone with the help of her children and a caregiver. The hospital didn't want her experiencing complications that would lengthen the stay, but they also didn't want to discharge her before she was ready. Under the health reform law, hospitals face penalties if patients come back too soon after being released.

Patients and their families often are unaware of the additional attention. Sitting in a chair in front of a vase of pink flowers, Gordon said she knew she would have to do her part to get out of the hospital quickly. "You have to move," she said. "I know you get bed sores if you stay in bed."

Gordon said she was comfortable at the hospital but she wanted to go back to her house as quickly as she could. "There's no place like home," she said.

Two days later, that's where she was.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

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Stars salute MusiCares honoree Bruce Springsteen

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Be it concert or charity auction, Bruce Springsteen can bring any event to a crescendo.

Springsteen briefly took over auctioneering duties before being honored as MusiCares person of the year Friday night, exhorting the crowd to bid on a signed Fender electric guitar by amping up the deal. The 63-year-old rock 'n' roll star moved the bid north from $60,000 by offering a series of sweeteners.

"That's right, a one-hour guitar lesson with me," Springsteen shouted. "And a ride in my Harley Davidson sidecar. So dig in, one-percenters."

That moved the needle past $150,000. He added eight concert tickets and backstage passes with a bonus tour conducted by Springsteen himself. That pushed it to $200,000, but he wasn't done.

"And a lasagna made by my mother!" he shouted as an in-house camera at the Los Angeles Convention Center cut to his 87-year-old mother Adele Ann Springsteen.

And with an extra $250,000 in the musicians charity's coffers, Springsteen sat down and spent most of the evening in the unusual role of spectator as a string of stars that included Elton John, Neil Young, Sting, Kenny Chesney, John Legend, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Patti Smith, Jackson Browne took the stage two nights before the Grammy Awards.

"Here's a little secret about Bruce Springsteen: He loves this," host Jon Stewart joked. "There's nothing he'd rather do than come to Los Angeles, put on a suit ... and then have people talking about him like he's dead."

Alabama Shakes kicked things off with "Adam Raised A Cain" and over the course of the evening there were several interesting takes on Springsteen's voluminous 40-year catalog of hits. Natalie Manes, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite played a stripped down "Atlantic City." Mavis Staples and Zac Brown put a gospel spin on "My City of Ruins." John added a funky backbeat to "Streets of Philadelphia." Kenny Chesney offered an acoustic version of "One Step Up."

Jim James and Tom Morello burned through a scorching version of "The Ghost of Tom Joad" that brought the crowd out of their seats as Morello finished the song with a fiery guitar solo. And Mumford & Sons took it the opposite way, playing a quiet, acoustic version of "I'm On Fire" in the round that had the crowd leaning in.

Legend offered a somber piano version of "Dancing in the Dark" and Young shut down the pre-Springsteen portion of the evening with a "Born in the USA" that included two sign-language interpreters dressed as cheerleaders signing along to the lyrics.

"John Legend made me sound like Gershwin," Springsteen said. "I love that. Neil Young made me sound like the Sex Pistols. I love that. What an evening."

Springsteen spoke of the "miracle of music," the importance of musicians in human culture and making sure everyone is cared for. And he joked that he somehow ended up being honored by MusiCares, a charity that offers financial assistance to musicians in need run by The Recording Academy, after his manager called up Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich to seek a performance slot on the show in a "mercenary publicity move."

In the end, though, he was moved by the evening.

"It's kind of a freaky experience, the whole thing," Springsteen said. "This is the huge Italian wedding Patti (Scialfa) and I never had. It's a huge Bar Mitzvah. I owe each and every one of you. You made me feel like the person of the year. Now give me that damn guitar."

He asked the several thousand attendees to move toward the stage — "Come on, it's only rock 'n' roll" — and kicked off his five-song set with his Grammy nominated song "We Take Care Of Our Own." At the end of the night he brought everyone on stage for "Glory Days."

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In Nigeria, Polio Vaccine Workers Are Killed by Gunmen

At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death in northern Nigeria on Friday by gunmen who attacked two clinics, officials said.

The killings, with eerie echoes of attacks that killed nine female polio workers in Pakistan in December, represented another serious setback for the global effort to eradicate polio.

Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of the head, local reports said.

A four-day vaccination drive had just ended in Kano State, where the killings took place, and the vaccinators were in a “mop-up” phase, looking for children who had been missed, said Sarah Crowe, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, one of the agencies running the eradication campaign.

Dr. Mohammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s minister of state for health, said in a telephone interview that it was not entirely clear whether the gunmen were specifically targeting polio workers or just attacking the health centers where vaccinators happened to be gathering early in the morning. “Health workers are soft targets,” he said.

No one immediately took responsibility, but suspicion fell on Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group that has attacked police stations, government offices and even a religious leader’s convoy.

Polio, which once paralyzed millions of children, is now down to fewer than 1,000 known cases around the world, and is endemic in only three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Since September — when a new polio operations center was opened in the capital and Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, appointed a special adviser for polio — the country had been improving, said Dr. Bruce Aylward, chief of polio eradication for the World Health Organization. There have been no new cases since Dec. 3.

While vaccinators have not previously been killed in the country, there is a long history of Nigerian Muslims shunning the vaccine.

Ten years ago, immunization was suspended for 11 months as local governors waited for local scientists to investigate rumors that it caused AIDS or was a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls. That hiatus let cases spread across Africa. The Nigerian strain of the virus even reached Saudi Arabia when a Nigerian child living in hills outside Mecca was paralyzed.

Heidi Larson, an anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who tracks vaccine issues, said the newest killings “are kind of mimicking what’s going on in Pakistan, and I feel it’s very much prompted by that.”

In a roundabout way, the C.I.A. has been blamed for the Pakistan killings. In its effort to track Osama bin Laden, the agency paid a Pakistani doctor to seek entry to Bin Laden’s compound on the pretext of vaccinating the children — presumably to get DNA samples as evidence that it was the right family. That enraged some Taliban factions in Pakistan, which outlawed vaccination in their areas and threatened vaccinators.

Nigerian police officials said the first shootings were of eight workers early in the morning at a clinic in the Tarauni neighborhood of Kano, the state capital; two or three died. A survivor said the two gunmen then set fire to a curtain, locked the doors and left.

“We summoned our courage and broke the door because we realized they wanted to burn us alive,” the survivor said from her bed at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

About an hour later, six men on three-wheeled motorcycles stormed a clinic in the Haye neighborhood, a few miles away. They killed seven women waiting to collect vaccine.

Ten years ago, Dr. Larson said, she joined a door-to-door vaccination drive in northern Nigeria as a Unicef communications officer, “and even then we were trying to calm rumors that the C.I.A. was involved,” she said. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars had convinced poor Muslims in many countries that Americans hated them, and some believed the American-made vaccine was a plot by Western drug companies and intelligence agencies.

Since the vaccine ruse in Pakistan, she said, “Frankly, now, I can’t go to them and say, ‘The C.I.A. isn’t involved.’ ”

Dr. Pate said the attack would not stop the newly reinvigorated eradication drive, adding, “This isn’t going to deter us from getting everyone vaccinated to save the lives of our children.”

Aminu Abubakar contributed reported from Kano, Nigeria.

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Tesla's electric Model S is a truly competitive premium sedan

The Tesla Model S may be a silent car, but other automakers will no doubt hear it coming.

In its first crack at a premium sedan, the Silicon Valley electric-car maker has matched or beaten the likes of the Audi A7 or Mercedes-Benz CLS — products of a century of German engineering. Similarly packaged as a sleek four-door coupe, the Model S delivers the performance and polish implied by its $89,770 price.

All that's missing is the roar of internal combustion.

Ask the folks at Tesla Motors Inc. how they pulled this off and they'll say Tesla isn't a car company. It's a tech company, headquartered in a hive of innovation that helped lure the sharp minds who conceptualized the car from an outsider's perspective.

Founded in 2003, Tesla produced its first car in 2008, the two-seat Roadster. It sold about 2,400 of them before halting production last year.

The Model S represents Phase 2 of the Palo Alto company's outsized ambitions. Unlike the Roadster, which was built on the chassis of a Lotus sports car, Tesla built the Model S from scratch. It's a showpiece of the start-up's design prowess, targeting a demanding and well-heeled niche of customers.

The third and crucial phase — if the Model S can secure the company's survival a while longer — will be to create an affordable mass-market car. That's no small feat, given that the electric-car market, littered with past failures, accounts for just one-tenth of 1% of U.S. auto sales. (For all the accolades showered on Nissan's Leaf, the company has sold just 20,000 of the cars since 2010.)

The odds against Tesla will be easier to calculate soon, when the company details sales and earnings at a shareholder's meeting expected in late February. The most recent update came last fall, when Tesla cut its revenue forecast and scaled back 2012 Model S production plans from 5,000 to about half that number.

Just 253 of the sedans had been delivered at that point.

The lowered expectations raised concern that the company will need a new influx of cash this year. The cash that produced the Model S was gathered during the Roadster era. Tesla secured $465 million in U.S. Department of Energy loans and went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market. It also started collecting Model S deposits and sold minority stakes in the company to Toyota and Daimler, the parent of Mercedes-Benz.

Now it's up to the Model S to bring in more cash.

Nearly a week spent in the car's high-tech cockpit suggests that Tesla has a legitimate shot at making automotive history with truly competitive electric cars.

If Tesla is a technology company, the evidence starts with the car's innovative infotainment system. The 17-inch touch screen controls nearly everything — including navigation, stereo, climate control and driving settings. As clear and touch-sensitive as an Apple iPad, the huge screen can easily accommodate multiple functions at once.

You can view the Google Maps-based navigation on one half of the screen while fiddling with radio controls on the other. Or swap the two. Or close one of them and bring up a new function — say, the phone or the Internet browser. Or just expand one function to cover the whole screen.

Contrast that to a car company making technology: Ford has produced its Sync system about as long as Tesla has made cars, and yet Sync remains eons behind in sophistication and ease of use.

But the most impressive technology resides in the guts of the Model S. The car overflows with torque, that delicious byproduct of electric propulsion. Despite a portly curb weight — a comparable Audi A7 weighs about 400 pounds less — the S clears zero to 60 mph in a mere 5.6 seconds.

Our test car, rated at 362 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque, uses an 85-kilowatt-hour battery to power the rear wheels through an electric motor. The battery comes in the premium version of the Model S — the only one currently produced, with a base price of $81,820, including delivery, before any state or federal tax incentives. Additional options on our test car included the tech package, an upgraded sound system and air suspension.

Tesla has promised two less expensive versions of the car with smaller batteries, meaning decreased power and range.

Power in the premium Model S comes from roughly 1,000 pounds of lithium-ion cells — all integrated into the car's floor pan, an innovative setup giving the Model S a low center of gravity and a stiff chassis. The underside of the battery pack forms the underside of the car.

In eager driving, the S doesn't feel exactly light, but it carries its weight well, with no excessive body roll in turns. Drivers can use the touch screen to select one of three different steering modes, although the most aggressive 'sport' setting proved a little too firm in most driving situations.

The brakes on the Model S are plenty strong, and fortunately are not the regenerative variety you'll find on most gas-electric hybrids, which have a mushy, grabby feel.

Mash the go-pedal, and the Tesla plants you in your seat and rushes forward with eerily little feedback, save for the faint whir of the motor behind you. The addicting experience is not unlike being flung out of a giant sling-shot.

The trouble is that repeated demonstrations of the car's prodigious power utterly destroy its range. Tesla says this model will go 300 miles on a single charge. The EPA puts that number at 265 miles. Over four days of testing the car, we managed only about 160 miles in heavy-footed driving.

All Model S's will charge through a 120V or 240V outlet. Tesla says the former needs roughly 46 hours to recharge fully, while the latter needs eight to 10 hours. Buyers can reduce these times by adding a second on-board charger for $1,500 and buying a high-power wall connector for $1,200.

Tesla is also installing 100 of what it calls supercharging stations in the U.S. and Canada by year's end, including six already operating in California. They're free for Tesla owners, who can add half a charge in about half an hour.

There will be a lot more of those owners soon, the company says. Tesla has more than 13,000 fully refundable deposits and expects to deliver 20,000 of the cars this year. The only other morsel of intel on the company's finances came from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, of PayPal fame, who cryptically tweeted in early December that the company was "narrowly cash-flow positive last week."

Established automakers should be paying attention, but they shouldn't be surprised. In a blog post dated August 2006, Musk laid out his three-step vision for Tesla. Step 1: Build a sports car. Then use that money to build an affordable car. Then, finally, use that money to build an even more affordable car.

Steps 1 and 2 are done, with mixed results. The Model S is hardly affordable, nor does it guarantee safe passage to Step 3. But strip away the financial drama, and all that's left is the best electric car ever made.

david.undercoffler@latimes.com

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Big Bear locked down amid manhunt

The bustling winter resort of Big Bear took on the appearance of a ghost town Thursday as surveillance aircraft buzzed overhead and police in tactical gear and carrying rifles patrolled mountain roads in convoys of SUVs, while others stood guard along major intersections.

Even before authorities had confirmed that the torched pickup truck discovered on a quiet forest road belonged to suspected gunman Christopher Dorner, 33, officials had ordered an emergency lockdown of local businesses, homes and the town's popular ski resorts. Parents were told to pick up their children from school, as rolling yellow buses might pose a target to an unpredictable fugitive on the run.

By nightfall, many residents had barricaded their doors as they prepared for a long, anxious evening.

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"We're all just stressed," said Andrea Burtons as she stocked up on provisions at a convenience store. "I have to go pick up my brother and get him home where we're safe."

Police ordered the lockdown about 9:30 a.m. as authorities throughout Southern California launched an immense manhunt for the former lawman, who is accused of killing three people as part of a long-standing grudge against the LAPD. Dorner is believed to have penned a long, angry manifesto on Facebook saying that he was unfairly fired from the force and was now seeking vengeance.

Forest lands surrounding Big Bear Lake are cross-hatched with fire roads and trails leading in all directions, and the snow-capped mountains can provide both cover and extreme challenges to a fugitive on foot. It was unclear whether Dorner was prepared for such rugged terrain.

Footprints were found leading from Dorner's burned pickup truck into the snow off Forest Road 2N10 and Club View Drive in Big Bear Lake.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said that although authorities had deployed 125 officers for tracking and door-to-door searches, officers had to be mindful that the suspect may have set a trap.

"Certainly. There's always that concern and we're extremely careful and we're worried about this individual," McMahon said. "We're taking every precaution we can."

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Big Bear has roughly 400 homes, but authorities guessed that only 40% are occupied year-round.

The search will probably play out with the backdrop of a winter storm that is expected to hit the area after midnight.

Up to 6 inches of snow could blanket local mountains, the National Weather Service said.

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Gusts up to 50 mph could hit the region, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Moede, creating a wind-chill factor of 15 to 20 degrees.

Extra patrols were brought in to check vehicles coming and going from Big Bear, McMahon said, but no vehicles had been reported stolen.

"He could be anywhere at this point," McMahon said. When asked if the burned truck was a possible diversion, McMahon replied: "Anything's possible."

Dorner had no known connection to the area, authorities said.

Craig and Christine Winnegar, of Murrieta, found themselves caught up in the lockdown by accident. Craig brought his wife to Big Bear as a surprise to celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary. Their prearranged dinner was canceled when restaurant owners closed their doors out of fear.

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Uggs? Ugh. NY Fashion Week battles the elements

NEW YORK (AP) — Mother Nature is clearly not a fashionista.

An impending blizzard forced Michael Kors to arrive at New York Fashion Week's Project Runway show on Friday in — gasp — Uggs.

"I came in looking like Pam Anderson," he joked backstage, where the offending boots had been traded for tasteful black leather.

Marc Jacobs postponed his Monday night show until Thursday, citing delivery problems, but for the most part Fashion Week went on with the show. IMG Fashion said organizers remained in contact with city officials including the Mayor's office about potential weather problems, but that they had planned for an extra layer of tenting for the venue and more heat at Lincoln Center along with crews to help with snow and ice.

Zac Posen said he would present his collection as usual on Sunday but he worried that out-of-town editors and retailers might not be able to make it. Other designers were considering plan B — perhaps an internet stream — in case crowds are snowed out.

Still, plenty of fashion fans wouldn't let a little snow get in the way. Baltimore college student Carmen Green arrived in a red cocktail dress and black high-heel booties.

"In this outfit, the blizzard did not deter me," she said. She did allow that she had only had to cross the street from her hotel and would change into combat boots for the train ride home.

The celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch even offered a blizzard pro tip.

"You either come in warm and comfortable clothes and boots or you come in neon — or sequins would be a good one — so they see you in the drift," he said.

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The New Old Age: The Executor's Assistant

I’m serving as executor for my father’s estate, a role few of us are prepared for until we’re playing it, so I was grateful when the mail brought “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates” — the fourth edition of a handbook the A.B.A. began publishing in 1995.

This is a legal universe, I’m learning, in which every step — even with a small, simple estate that owes no taxes and includes no real estate or trusts — turns out to be at least 30 percent more complicated than expected.

If my dad had been wealthy or owned a business, or if we faced a challenge to his will, I would have turned the whole matter over to an estate lawyer by now. But even then, it would be helpful to know what the lawyer was talking about. The A.B.A. guide would help.

Written with surprising clarity (hey, they’re lawyers), it maps out all kinds of questions and decisions to consider and explains the many ways to leave property to one’s heirs. Updated from the third edition in 2009, the guide not only talks taxes and trusts, but also offers counsel for same-sex couples and unconventional families.

If you want to permit your second husband to live in the family home until he dies, but then guarantee that the house reverts to the children of your first marriage, the guide tells you how a “life estate” works. It explains what is taxable and what isn’t, and discusses how to choose executors and trustees. It lists lots of resources and concludes with an estate-planning checklist.

In general, the A.B.A. intends its guide for the person trying to put his or her affairs in order, more than for family members trying to figure out how to proceed after someone has died. But many of us will play both these parts at some point (and if you are already an executor, or have been, please tell us how that has gone, and mention your state). We’ll need this information.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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